Translation Agency? Come again?
Sometimes you find yourself in a world that up to a few weeks before, you were completely oblivious of. The world of translating was like that for me. Of course, I knew that there were countless texts that need translation. Books, websites, business documentation…. The variety is endless. From cookbooks and manuals to schoolbooks and encyclopaedias, it’s clear that the scope of the translation sector is huge.
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And yet, I never gave it much thought. How hard can it be to translate a book, right? Then I started my internship at Textcase. I found out how many translations there are, and how complex the translation process really is. Talented professionals who have spent years of studious dedication to become literary translators. Their enormous passion for language. The talent that is needed to capture the spirit of a text, maintain its original tone and feel. How a single word impacts the meaning of a sentence. All these things surprised and intrigued me.
The projects are much larger than I thought. The Fifty Shades trilogy, translated by Textcase, consists of three books, each approximately 160,000 words. 160,000 words that needed to be translated while the page-turner appeal of the original was kept in tact. A project spanning three months, with a team of people committed to ensure that everything was right, down to the tiniest details. The raving reviews testify to the success of the project, “a better read than the original’ isn’t a classification that is given easily.
Of course, this is the perfect example of huge translations that were successfully completed by a team of professionals. But one thing has already become crystal clear to me in the short time I’ve been with Textcase: Translations, no matter how large or small – from marketing campaigns for multinationals to product information in a small web store – they are all essential. A proficient translation can make the difference between closing a deal and missing out, and this insight will probably become even more profound over the coming months. Because I get the feeling that I’ve only glimpsed a small island in this enormous, new world.